A ravishing poem, one of the best loved and most frequently cited sonnets in English, but doesn't it refute my premises? The argument appears to be abstract or philosophical, not personal at all, not "interested" in the narrow sense. And impediment, which I have claimed the sonnet requires, is named by the poet only so that he may specifically disallow it.

English: Sonnet XXX of William Shakespeare on a wa...

Canon Love

English: Shakespeare's sonnet 1

What shall we make of the contradiction?

"Let me not": the poem begins in the imperative mood. Its action is semantic -- it aims to delineate the allowable parameters of love -- and its goal appears to be air-tightness. I will not grant, the poet asserts, that love includes impediments. If it falters, it is not love. The love I have in mind is a beacon (a seamark or navigational guide to sailors); it is a north star. Like that star, it exceeds all narrow comprehension (its "worth's unknown"); its height alone (the navigator's basis for calculation) is sufficient to guide us. The poem's ideal is unwavering faith, and it purports to perform its own ideal. Odd then, isn't it, how much of the argument proceeds by means...

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3 pages225Nov/19964.0

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